Results from Iranian presidential election start to trickle in

By Ben Brumfield. Laura Smith-Spark and Greg Botelho, CNN

updated 9:03 AM EDT, Fri June 14, 2013

Iranian President-elect Hassan Rouhani waves at a news conference in Tehran on Monday, June 17. Rouhani, a cleric and moderate politician, took more than 50% of the vote after campaigning on a platform of "hope and prudence," appealing to both traditional conservatives and reform-minded voters.

Supporters of Rouhani's celebrate his victory in downtown Tehran on Saturday, June 15.

Rouhani leaves a polling station after voting in Tehran on Friday, June 14. About 50 million Iranian voters were eligible to go to the polls to select a new president from a field of six candidates.

Iranian men wait to vote at a polling station at the Massoumeh shrine in the holy city of Qom, south of Tehran, during presidential elections on June 14.

A girl watches a woman cast her ballot on June 14.

Iranian clergymen wait in line to vote at a polling station at the Massoumeh shrine on June 14.

A woman checks out her ballot before voting in Iran's presidential elections at a Tehran polling station on June 14.

Women wait in line to vote at a shrine in Qom on June 14.

Voters fill out paper ballots in Tehran on June 14.

A woman casts her ballot during the Iranian presidential elections in Shahr-e-Rey on June 14.

Former Iranian President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani votes in the Jamaran mosque in Tehran on June 14.

Presidential candidate Hassan Rouhani casts his vote in Tehran on June 14.

Youths ride past campaign posters in downtown Tehran on Thursday, June 13, a day ahead of the country's presidential election.

Supporters of top nuclear negotiator and conservative presidential candidate Saeed Jalili wave national flags during his campaign rally at Heydarnia stadium in Tehran on Wednesday, June 12.

A supporter of Hassan Rouhani, moderate presidential candidate and former top nuclear negotiator, works on her laptop in one of his campaign offices in Tehran on Tuesday, June 11.

Iranian supporters of former vice president and reformist presidential candidate Mohammad Reza Aref shout slogans during his campaign rally in Tehran on Monday, June 10. Later on Monday he announced his decision to drop out of the race. Hours earlier, another candidate, Gholam-Ali Haddad-Adel, also said he was out.

A supporter of Iranian presidential candidate Mohsen Rezaei, Iran's top commander during the war with Iraq, holds a blue flag bearing his portrait during a rally in Tehran on June 10.

An Aref supporter checks her mobile phone surrounded by campaign posters after the June 10 rally in Tehran.

Pilgrims and clergymen walk across the courtyard of the Masoumeh holy shrine in the religious Shiite Muslim city of Qom on Sunday, June 9. Iran's powerful bazaar merchants and Shiite clergy spearheaded the 1979 Islamic revolution, but their role in the country's political scene has waned over the years, analysts say.

An Iranian clergyman walks past campaign posters on June 9 in Qom, south of the capital city of Tehran.

Iranians read the headlines on the front pages of newspapers unveiling the approved presidential candidates on May 22 in Tehran.

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Iran's presidential election

Iran's presidential election

Iran's presidential election

Iran's presidential election

Iran's presidential election

Iran's presidential election

Iran's presidential election

Iran's presidential election

Iran's presidential election

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Iran's presidential election

Iran's presidential election

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STORY HIGHLIGHTS

NEW: Centrist candidate Rouhani is top vote-getter in very early results

State media reports about 70% voter turnout in a nation of 50 million eligible voters

If no candidate gets a majority, there will be a runoff next week

The last election resulted in bloody street protests known as the "Green Movement"

(CNN) -- The lines extended into the street at times, voters waiting to pick their choice to succeed Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Some 70% of some 50 million registered voters -- men and women, young and old -- turned out according to state broadcaster Press TV, to pick a man who'll deal with high-stakes challenges domestically and internationally.

And now the results are starting to trickle in.

Based on two sets of still very early results, centrist candidate Hassan Rouhani had more votes than any other candidate, Interior Ministry officials said early Saturday.

Even counted cumulatively, these votes represented a small fraction of the total vote. If the 70% turnout figure is correct, there would be about 35 million votes; the early results reflect about 1.76 million.

When the final tally does come in, that doesn't necessarily mean the election is over. If no single candidate gets more than half the vote, the top two finishers will face off in a runoff next Friday, June 21.

That victor will take Ahmadinejad's mantle as one of the most visible figures, at a time it's dealing with widespread sanctions tied to international anger over its nuclear program.

But he won't be Iran's most powerful man: That distinction belongs to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has been Iran's supreme leader since 1989. He's got plenty of backing, from conservative citizens to paramilitary to, most notably of all, the Revolutionary Guard.

"Whoever is president, he's going to have his hands relatively tied by the Revolutionary Guard if they don't really like what he's doing," said Alireza Nader, a policy analyst at the Rand Corporation think tank.

Centrist candidate complained of irregularities

This reality of Iranian governance, though, didn't prevent 680 men and women from officially seeking the office. The Guardian Council -- a non-elected body made up of six clerics and six lawyers operating under the oversight of the supreme leader -- narrowed that group down to eight. Two others subsequently dropped out.

The final six contenders don't include any women. Nor do they include Ahmadinejad's aide and protege Esfandiar Rahim Mashaei, who was among those excluded by the Guardian Council.

Velayati, Ghalibaf and Jalili, who is Iran's chief nuclear negotiator, are considered close to Khamenei and would be unlikely to challenge his authority. Of the three, Jalili has seen the most popular support going into the vote.

Rouhani, meanwhile, has the backing of the highly influential former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani.

Hours into the voting, Rouhani had complained of a voting irregularity. A reform candidate, Mohammed Aref, who dropped out of the race earlier in the week, is still on some ballots.

Rouhani is worried that voters may mistakenly select Aref, which would amount to a vote thrown away. It was not clear how many ballot papers were concerned.

Images of bleeding and dying Iranians flickered across social media four years ago after allegations of election fraud sparked protests and clashes. Police and the Basij, a feared paramilitary group, cracked down on the protests.

Protesters were jailed, and human rights groups alleged many were tortured and killed behind bars while the government quashed the uprising.

Reform politicians representing the movement, including Ahmadinejad's election rival, former Prime Minister Mir Hossein Moussavi, have remained under house arrest.

Despite the unrest, Ahmadinejad's re-election was formally certified by the clerical establishment.

Since his reelection, conservative politicians close to the supreme leader have assailed Ahmadinejad for being too liberal, and he has often been at odds with Khamenei.

Ahead of the vote this time round, campaigning was more muted although Khamenei's office repeated his call to the ballot boxes Friday with posts on social networking site Twitter.

"I humbly expect from our nation to participate all in #IranElection & do this as soon as possible," the supreme leader's post said.

Voting is not mandatory in Iran, but there are major incentives to push people to the polls. An active voter has a better shot at promotions in the workplace and preference when it comes to collecting social welfare benefits.

This can be vital in an economy that is chronically weighed down by international sanctions over nuclear concerns.

Khamenei also tweeted a jab at the United States, which has often led the charge to tighten those sanctions.

"I have heard that #USpoliticians said they don't recognize #IranianElection. Hell with their recognition!" he said.

Clampdown on dissent?

Rights group Amnesty International said this week that it was "concerned by evidence that the Iranian authorities are intensifying their clampdown on dissent" in the run-up to the vote.

"Those targeted include political activists, journalists and other media workers, trade unionists, advocates of greater rights for Iran's religious and ethnic minorities, students and others. In many cases, the full reasons for arrest and detention are not known; in others, those arrested have been brought before the courts on sweeping but vaguely worded charges, convicted and sentenced to prison terms," it said.

The head of language services for BBC World Service, Liliane Landor, also complained Thursday of "unacceptable harassment" of its staff and other independent journalists in Iran.

"The BBC is very concerned by the unprecedented levels of intimidation being suffered by families of BBC Persian Service staff living in Iran in the final days of the presidential election campaign," she said.

"The harassment has included threats that relatives will lose jobs and pensions and be prevented from traveling abroad. For the first time the lives of BBC Persian TV staff living in the UK have also been threatened."

Iran's Minister of Culture and Islamic Guidance, Mohammad Hosseini, said more than 2,000 local reporters and 450 foreign journalists were covering the election in Iran.

The head of the Foreign Reporters Bureau within the ministry, Alireza Shirvani, said the number of foreign reporters covering the presidential election had increased by about 15% compared with four years ago.